1893, England.
Oxford smelled like ink and ghosts.
Iris Evelyn stepped off the train into the gray, yellow-stained air of late afternoon. The sky had the color of old paper, and the kind of chill that made everything feel heavier than it should. Her boots hit the cobblestone with a soft clatter, and the weight of her satchel threatened to pull her sideways. It was stuffed with worn books, crumpled notes, and ink-stained scarves she never got around to washing.
She took a deep breath, squinted at the spires in the distance, and muttered, "Well, here we go again."
The quad stretched ahead of her like a test she hadn't revised for. Men in tailored coats walked in pairs, too polished, too quiet. The grass was cut too precisely. The air too still. Iris, who had a habit of breathing too loudly and thinking out loud, felt like a coffee stain on silk.
Still, she smiled. Slightly crooked. Slightly defiant.
The bells rang three times from somewhere overhead. Her eyes widened.
"Of course," she whispered. "I'm late. Again."
She quickened her pace, nearly colliding with a professor as she turned into the east wing corridor. He huffed something disapproving—she grinned apologetically, already gone.
The hallway narrowed. Cold stone walls, old portraits watching with flat eyes. Her boots echoed. She passed a few students, none who looked directly at her. One whispered. She caught the word "girl" and nothing else.
She rolled her eyes. "Innovative," she muttered.
Room 4C. East Wing. That was the place. She hadn't been invited to the student-led philosophy circle—just told by Cecily that she "might want to drop by." Translation: They're not expecting you. Make it count.
She stopped in front of the door, adjusted her coat, tucked her loose hair behind one ear, and took a breath.
Then she opened it.
The room was warmer than expected.
Firelight flickered low in the hearth. Books lined the walls like quiet witnesses. A long oak table stretched across the room, flanked by twelve students and two professors. At the head stood a man she didn't know but somehow recognized.
Edward Ashcroft.
He looked like old money wrapped in self-control. Dark wool coat, black waistcoat, starched white collar buttoned all the way up. No jewelry. No warmth.
His eyes were fixed on his notes. One gloved hand rested on the table. The other held a pen like it was a sword.
He didn't look up when she walked in.
But others did.
Someone whispered. A soft murmur rippled through the room.
Ashcroft finally looked up.
Their eyes met.
It wasn't fate. It wasn't lightning. It was stillness—the kind of stillness just before a duel begins.
She smiled. Just enough to irritate.
He didn't smile back.
She took the only open seat, dropped her bag with an unnecessary thud, and pulled out a notebook. One student next to her shifted his chair a polite inch away.
Professor Sallis glanced over her spectacles. "Miss Evelyn. We've just begun. The proposition: 'Emotion is the enemy of reason.' Thoughts?"
Iris tapped her pen against her lip.
"Well," she said slowly, "that does sound rather dramatic, does it not?"
A few chuckles. Someone stifled a snort.
Ashcroft did not flinch.
She looked straight at him. "Would you truly claim, Mr. Ashcroft, that emotion is our great foe? That if one weeps at a funeral, one's mind is henceforth compromised?"
He blinked once. Measured.
"Emotion clouds judgment. Philosophy is built upon clarity."
"So is glass. Yet even glass shall crack under pressure."
That got a small ripple of amusement.
Ashcroft's gaze sharpened. "And you would suggest philosophy ought to accommodate fragility?"
"Not at all. I suggest it already does. You're merely pretending otherwise."
Now he paused.
And in that pause, she felt it—that brief shift in the room, the lean of attention. Someone behind her scribbled something down. The air tightened.
Ashcroft adjusted his cufflink with slow, deliberate precision.
"The mind must lead," he said. "If we indulge every impulse of feeling, we reduce debate to sentiment."
"And if we amputate emotion, we reduce mankind to arithmetic."
Silence.
Then Professor Crowthorne cleared his throat. "A spirited contribution. We shall move on."
But the damage was done.
Afterward, in the hallway, Iris leaned against the wall and exhaled slowly.
Cecily found her. "Well. You did not set the room ablaze. Merely melted a few delicate minds."
"Ashcroft is not delicate. He's carved from marble."
"Mm. Beautiful—and heavy."
Iris made a face. "He's... insufferable. Precise."
"You enjoyed it."
She rolled her eyes. "I enjoyed besting him."
They didn't see Ashcroft watching from the stairwell.
He stood there in the shadow, eyes unreadable.
That night, in his room, Edward Ashcroft sat at his desk and stared at a blank page.
He'd taken off his gloves. Unusual. The ink smudged as he wrote.
He didn't write her name. But he remembered her phrasing. The rhythm of her retorts. The way the room had leaned toward her.
He told himself it was irritation. Disruption.
Still, he didn't sleep.
When he closed his eyes, he saw her—
Standing in the firelight. Laughing.
And not at him.
Not yet.